Containers on Google Cloud Platform

Overview

Google is making it simple to run Docker containers on Google Cloud Platform.
From container-optimized VMs to our fully-hosted container management platform,
there's an option for all developers interested in using containers to run
their applications.

Container VMs

The container-optimized VM provides a way to statically and declaratively run
multiple Docker containers on a Google Compute Engine instance.
Container-optimized Google Compute Engine images are Debian images with a few
additions:

The Docker runtime is pre-installed, so you're ready to create containers
as soon as your instance is up.

The image includes an agent that handles container manifest files, to create
and monitor containers automatically.

More information about container VMs, including sample code to get you started,
is available on the
Container-Optimized Images page.

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an open source container cluster manager. It schedules any number
of container replicas across a group of node instances. A master instance
exposes the Kubernetes API, through which tasks are defined. Kubernetes spawns
containers on nodes to handle the defined tasks.

The number and type of containers can be dynamically modified according to need.
An agent (a kubelet) on each node instance monitors containers and restarts them
if necessary.

Kubernetes is optimized for Google Cloud Platform, but can run on any physical
or virtual machine.